Clearing your mind with note-taking apps

- When it comes to productivity, one of the most powerful tools is having a cleaned mind. Now, if you have a mind that's filled with all different kinds of tasks and to dos, that becomes very distracting. What we want to do is the moment one of these things pops into your head you immediately gather it quickly and put it into an approved gathering point. I'll walk you through an example in a moment, but first let's talk about some of the principles behind this. First, I recommend that you stay digital in the way that you gather.

Yes, you can use a physical notepad to gather these things, but there's real value in having a device with you at all times that can sync across multiple devices. Second, we want to create a folder called inbox where everything goes automatically. If you're dumping these random ideas into lots of different folders and sections, they're likely to get lost. Third, is you want it to be able to sync automatically, whether I'm using a desktop, or I'm using a tablet or a phone, we want them all to communicate with each other so I can gather no matter what device I'm using.

And finally, we want to process weekly. In the same way that we do with email, we want these inboxes to be cleared out and brought to zero once per week. So, let's walk through one example using OneNote. Now, you could use any other note taking device and set up many of the things that I'm talking about here. In OneNote, you want to create a section called inbox. This is where we want everything to go.

Then we can set up a widget on your phone. I recommend you do that right on the front home page of your phone. That way you're ready at a moments notice for any idea that pops into your head. You can just click on the widget and type it in. You could even snap a picture to remind you about that item that you need to process. The same goes for any idea that you have when you're at your desktop. Capture it, immediately put it in the inbox, then later we have one place where you'll go to do what, when, where, processing.

You'll take one item at a time, just like email, process it deciding what's the next step, when we'll be done, and where's it's home, an then after that drag it into the archive section. By having this kind of app at your hand, you're ready in a moments notice to gather any idea that comes into your head and you won't miss a thing.